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Texas A&M swats second-seeded North Carolina from tournament

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Despite the sea of Carolina blue in the stands, the No. 2-seeded North Carolina Tar Heels fell to seventh-seeded Texas A&M , 86-65, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday.

The game’s tone was set midway through the first half, with the Tar Heels up, 20-17. North Carolina sophomore Brandon Robinson drove to the hoop, and Robert Williams, Texas A&M’s 6-foot-10 sophomore forward, shifted over, leapt at Robinson’s layup and slammed it back like a tennis player hitting a lob.

It not only denied the Tar Heels a basket; it was a message from the Aggies: We rule down low.

And so they did for the rest of the game. From that block, they went on a 25-8 run to close the half, and then built on the lead from there.

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When Carolina’s wing players went inside after that early block, one could almost feel their caution. In the second half, the mere threat of Williams lurking down low caused Joel Berry II to turn a routine drive into a circus layup that failed to drop.

Williams’ block was one of eight for the Aggies. With the inside closed off, the Tar Heels shifted to 3-pointers. They entered Sunday averaging 22.7 attempts per game; on Sunday, they tried 31. They shot 36.7 percent from deep during the season; they shot 19.4 percent on Sunday.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams prides himself on his team’s rebounding, but it was part of the problem Sunday. Texas A&M outrebounded UNC, 50-36.

North Carolina came into the season as the defending champion and, after an up-and-down 22-9 regular season, made an impressive run in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, winning three games and defeating Duke before falling to Virginia in the title game. The highest No. 2 on the men’s basketball committee’s seed line, the Tar Heels were pegged by many for a third consecutive trip to the Final Four.

The atmosphere here was predictably heavy in their favor. Except for one loud section set aside for Texas A&M fans, Charlotte’s Spectrum Center may as well have been Chapel Hill’s Dean Dome. Because of that and Carolina’s reputation, what was numerically a blowout felt a little more tenuous. When Berry hit a 3-pointer with just under 10 minutes left, the crowd came alive as if he had cut the Aggies’ lead to 5, not 19.

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The Tar Heels were able to make up a little ground late with an aggressive, trapping defense and a dash of Aggies conservatism on offense. But the game had been effectively blown open by then.

At one point late, the Aggies’ lead comfortably in double-digits, the Tar Heels’ press forced a turnover and a fast break led by senior Theo Pinson. Tonny Trocha-Morelos, a 6-10 senior, blocked Pinson’s layup, and the ball found its way to Williams, all alone on the other end of the floor. He put it home with a windmill dunk.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

MARC TRACY © 2018 The New York Times

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